Property Ownership History at MacLeish Field Station
Meredith Gallogly ’12 (MacLeish Intern)
Reid Bertone-Johnson
Through the Years…
Alvertus Morse sold this tract
to Emery Sanderson in 1955,
who later sold it to Milton
Soffer in 1974, who granted it
Smith College in 1975.
Ella Lawrence and Ruby
Burnett inherited this land,
traditionally called the ‘Todd
Lot’, from their respective
father and grandfather, Lyman
Sanderson. Ella’s son Sidney
sold it to Milton Soffer in 1972,
Blanche Cooney purchased
these properties in 1943 and
sold them to Smith College
in 1962. Her son Gabe still
lives on Poplar Hill Road.
who granted it Smith College in
1975. .
Lyman Sanderson bought the
‘Todd Lot’ from Myron Brown in
1987. He lived further down
Poplar Hill Rd and owned several
parcels of land on it.
James O’Connell leased this land
to Richard Moore in 1871, “…for
the purpose of searching for
mineral and fossil substances,
and of conducting mining and
quarrying operations”. There was
known to be a ‘sulpheret’ of lead
running through this property. It
exchanged hands several times
during this period as prospectors
came in trying to cash in.
Myron Brown bought the ‘Todd
Lot’ in 1859 from his older brother
Champion, who had inherited it
from their father Chester.
Victor Bardwell was a successful
business man who lived on Poplar Hill
Road, and purchased large tracts of
land in the area. He owned almost
every parcel in the Smith College
property at some point, if only for a few
years.
Lucy Bardwell was the mother of Victor
Bardwell, and was granted this land
by her sons in 1891. By the early
1900s it again became the property of
Victor.
Rufus Swift sold this plot to Victor
Bardwell in 1898. He probably
inherited the land from his stepfather,
Erastus Graves.
John E. Waite lost this tract of land
when he went bankrupt in 1873.
Charles and Perez M. Wells sold
this land to Cotton Bardwell, the
father of Victor Bardwell, in 1879.
The Wells were brothers, and both
wealthy business men. Perez was
the director of the First National
Bank in Northampton.
This land was probably in
possession on the Bardwell family at
this time. Edward Bardwell granted it
to his mother Lucy in 1891. His
father Cotton may have acquired it
as early as 1870, when he began to
purchase property on Poplar Hill Rd.
This semester I conducted a study of property deeds to uncover
the ownership history of the Ada and Archibald MacLeish Field
Station in West Whately. Deeds provide information about who
owned the land at various points in time, and may sometimes
provide hints as to what the land was used for. I have been able to
supplement my knowledge from the deeds with the extensive
genealogies and historical descriptions found in A History of the
Town of Whately, Mass, published by James Crafts in 1899.
The forests that now blanket the Field Station hide a rich and
complicated history of land use and ownership. A few centuries ago,
this land had been cleared of woods so that it could be farmed, mined
and used to pasture livestock. Several homesteads dotted the
discontinued stretch of Poplar Hill Rd that is now a woodland path
running straight through the Field Station. There are many fascinating
stories to be told about the history of MacLeish, and many more waiting
to be uncovered.
Many thanks to Reid Bertone-Johnson, Jesse Bellemare, Nan Wolverton and the Franklin County Registry of
Deeds for their help and encouragement.
The Todd Lot
Ownership Timeline
One of the most intriguing parcels at MacLeish the Todd Lot. It is referred to
alternatively as the ‘Todd Lot” or the “old Todd farm” in deeds as recent as 1975.
This ‘Todd’ and his farm remained a bit of a mystery for much of the semester. The
deeds that I uncovered back to 1859 all referred to the lot as Todd, but an owner
with the name of Todd never appeared. Even more intriguing, no one had ever
found any evidence of an old homestead site on the property, as this name hinted
that there should be. Finally, while searching through an old index in the Registry of
Deeds, I found him. Asa Todd was a Baptist preacher who moved to Whately in
1790 to become the minister of the new Baptist meetinghouse on Poplar Hill Road.
He was granted the farm in 1791, by the members of the church committee, led by
John Brown, whose descendants would one day own this property.
Know Ye, That We John Brown of Whately Gentleman,
Joseph Brown John Graves Joel Wait of Whately aforesaid in
the County of Hampshire & Commonwealth of Mafsachusetts
Yeoman Elisha Smith Zeke Warner of Conway County
aforesaid Yeoman For and in confideration of the sum of
one hundred & seventy pounds current Money of the
Commonwealth aforefaid to us, In Hand, paid before the
enfealing hereof by Asa Todd of Whately in the County of
Hampshire Commonwealth aforesaid Elder…
~~~
A certain tract of land lying in Whately
aforesaid being the farm on which the said
Todd now dwells & is bounded as follows
namely beginning on the highway at the
northeast corner of said farm then running
westerly by the division line…then northerly
so far as to come four feet north of the
fourth acre of apple trees from the dwelling
house…
John Crafts noted that Todd was “…doubtless an excellent man, but very deficient in
educational qualifications, judging by the church records he kept.” The house that then
existed on the property had been built perhaps twenty years earlier, by its earliest
resident, Silas Smith. A re-examination of the land led to the discovery of a possible
home-site near the vernal pool, a small depression bound by stone walls that iss so
worn away it has almost vanished. Asa Todd sold the property in 1803, and it is
possible he was one of the its last residents. In 1898 the house was “…long since
gone” and the current state of the site indicates that it may have been used as a field
and plowed over many times before it was returned to the forest.
The other prominent owners of the Todd lot were the Brown
family. Lieut. John Brown bought the land just south of the Todd
farm in 1769 and built a house on Poplar Hill Road in the early
1770s. His son Chester lived on the land after him. This deed
documents the sale of the land from Champion Brown, who
inherited the land from Chester, to his younger brother Myron in
1859. Champion left Whately behind to go into business in
Montreal, Canada.
THE LAND USE HISTORY OF THE MACLEISH FIELD STATION
LAURA PAUL AC-09
Prof. Amy Rhodes-Advisor
Department of Geology, Smith College, Northampton, MA. 01063, lpaul2@smith.edu, arhodes@email.smith.edu
Whately and the MacLeish Field Station
Whately pottery from the Whately Historical Society
Early Whately Pottery and Its Connections to Lead
Timber Cutting
Timber has been harvested on the MacLeish Field Station property four times since the land was purchased by Smith College. A
professional was hired to act as the Forest Resource Manager for the sales. The accompanying map shows the areas of those cuts by their
proposal dates. The timber often wasn’t cut until several months after the proposal was made. For each of the four cuts, data is available
containing the amounts of each lumber type obtained from the cut. Figure 1 categorizes the amount cut by Diameter-at-Breast-Height,
dbh, for the 1984 proposal date. The larger the dbh, the older the tree. Figure 2 shows the total timber cut by species. Data is also
available for the amount and species cut relative to the grade of lumber obtained.
80000
2020
Fred Bardwell in his kitchen. Whately, MA in November 2008
Interview with Fred Bardwell
Fred’s family can be traced back to the earliest English settlers of Whately. His family
once owned part of the MacLeish land, and still owns adjacent land today. During our
interview, he talked about the different way of life during both his parent’s time and his
own childhood. Both he and his father were born in the farmhouse on the property.
Outside the kitchen window of the house is the Westbrook River and a barn that was
built on the original site of a woolen mill owned and run by his father’s family. The mill
had 8 looms and was powered by the river. I asked about flooding, since the river is so
close to the house, and Fred acknowledged that they did have some flooding prior to the
large reservoir built for Northampton, but no longer. He told about the many things the
family did to obtain all they needed, including ice harvesting and hunting. He also had
memories of using that ice to make ice cream and of his brothers going ice skating just
below the house every Thanksgiving afternoon.
The Bardwells pastured cattle on some of their land during the summer which they
then sold in the fall. They leased out some fields to one of Fred’s uncles and used that
income to pay the year’s taxes. Crops were raised in some fields; in the area people grew
vegetables for their own consumption as well as tobacco and cucumbers to sell for cash.
Some of the land was harvested for its timber over the years. When they did cut timber
they simply let the land regenerate new growth naturally. They did not replant rows of all
the same kinds of trees like some forestry companies do today.
70000
50000
10000
0
Fig. 1
18,785
9965
4,575
40000
20000
1095
3575
7760
1505
2135
1715
780
1145
1860
585
3830
300
545
9450
1190
995565
1275
60000
30000
1984 Proposal Date-Total Timber Cut - by Species
1984 Proposal Date-Timber Cut by DBH
14,550
21,225
beech
1080
white ash
white
birch
sugar
maple
black
birch
pine
pallet
hdwd
pallet
red
maple
white
pine
hemlock
10,105
28,285
18,220
6,340
10-13
dbh
14-17
dbh
18+
dbh
hemlock
white pine
50000
red maple
hdwd pallet
40000
pine pallet
black birch
30000
sugar maple
white birch
red oak
20000
white ash
Total all
species =
185,925 bf
10000
Total all Species
185,925 board
feet
Total number of
trees= 1156
6720
3,105
red oak
60000
board feet volume
90000
board feet
The Whately area was initially settled by the Norwottuck peoples, who were considered Nipmuc,
Algonquin Indians native to Central Massachusetts and southern New England. They cleared the land
close to the river with fire every fall. The location and farmable land made it attractive to European
settlers from Connecticut looking for new land to move to. The town of Whately was incorporated in
1735, although English settlers had been there since the mid 1600’s. Whately subsequently split from
Hatfield in 1771 to become a separate town. The town was named after a local official.
Smith College bought the first parcel of land that was to become the MacLeish Field Station in the
1970’s. In May of 2008 the site was dedicated in honor of Ada and Archibald MacLeish by former
College president Jill Kerr Conway, whose gift currently supports the programs undertaken there. On
the site is an astronomy observatory and a tower that measures air pollution and meteorological
conditions for the NOAA air quality monitoring system.
(http://airmap.unh.edu/data/data.html?site=AIRMAPWH)
My project focused on the land use history of the MacLeish Field Station. I used books from various
libraries, searched the internet, visited the Whately Historical Society and Fair, walked the property
with landscape ecologist Tom Wessels, and used data from past timber harvests of the area to
determine a more visible interpretation of the age and species that were harvested. During the
remainder of April and May I will interview other long time Whately residents and investigate the
pottery connection in greater detail. With this data, future biology students will know what grew on
this land over its varied history, and geology students will be able to use this information to investigate
the mines and find sources of materials used in the past.
beech
Total # of
trees =
1156
0
52,845 45,880 26,445 20,260 4,945 11,255 13,610 3,260 3,005 2,450 1,970
Fig 2
Galena
“A vein of sulpheret of lead, which promises to be of some commercial value, exists in the west part of
town. Strictly speaking, there appears to be three distinct veins of this metal, but only two of them
have been explored to any extent. One is found on the westerly margin of Poplar Hill and extends into
Conway; the other is on the easterly side of Hog Mountain, and may be traced for three-fourths of a
mile. A cross vein has been discovered on land of Edwin Bardwell. The usual width of the vein is from
six to eight feet, traversing the granite formation and it found disseminated in masses in quartz. In the
southern part, it contains oxide and manganese along with the galena.”
From pg 296 if The History of Whately Massachusetts by Crafts and Temple, 1899.
All grades and dbh’s were combined to create this graph of the total board feet cut for
each timber sale proposal. The relatively small size of the area and the steepness of
the grade may account for the smaller amount of timber harvested during the 1988
proposal date cut.
Whately Pottery
Graph courtesy of David Dempsey Smith College Dept of Art
Redware pottery and bricks were made by early settlers from
clay found along the banks of the Mill River and the Great Swamp
Brook. Finely ground clay was added to lead from the lead mines
found on the MacLeish site along with any other coloring
elements, such as manganese, desired to make glazes for the
pottery. Because of the English Embargo which stopped the
importing of pottery, Whately area residents used more of the
locally made pottery than any other to store their foodstuffs. A
Connecticut doctor diagnosed illness among the Redware users
as “bilius colic” He attributed it to locally made pottery containing
“LED”. Subsequently lead-free clay was obtained from Berlin, CT
and New Jersey. (Baldwin) Thomas Crafts and many of his family
were major producers of area pottery.
David Dempsey, of the Department of Art at Smith College,
used the Portable X-Ray Florescence Instrument (XRF) to measure
the amounts of lead and iron in several pottery pieces from local
museums and historical societies. The last four items at the
bottom of the chart to the left (prefix WHS) are from the Whately
Historical Society. Further testing could be done to determine
more accurately if the lead and iron are from the clay itself
and/or the glaze. The time when the pieces were made should
show a difference in the clay’s content corresponding with the
change in the clay’s origins.
Self Sufficient Whately
Tom Wessels and Stone Walls
Walking the MacLeish land with Tom Wessels, author of Reading the Forested Landscape,
we could see some evidence of the land’s different uses by looking more carefully at the
stone walls on the property. The main path, an extension of Poplar Hill Road, was once
used to drive sheep. This was evidenced by the wide separation between the rock walls
lining the sides of the path. The extra width allowed large flocks to pass through more
easily, and were commonly made during the ‘sheep fever’ period in the early 1800’s.
Wessels also explained that stone walls were generally built for two purposes: walls
composed of large rocks were used to pasture animals, and were made by gathering rocks
obtained easily from the perimeter of the enclosure, whereas walls built from large and
small rocks were used to grow crops. In this case, stones were picked out and added to the
walls as the land was plowed each year, resulting in the addition of smaller stones.
Author Tom Wessels embellishes on a
concept while in a field at the MacLeish
Field Station, September 2008
The Whately area is part of ancient Glacial Lake Hitchcock.
From the lake deposits settlers found clay for pottery; lead
for glaze and paints; potash for soap and gunpowder; umber
and sienna for paints; rock for building and for making bowls
and cups (soapstone); and rich soil. Mills along the local
rivers served a number of different functions, from
manufacturing a variety of goods like satinet (a satin made
from cotton), woolen cloth, brooms, pottery, and linseed oil,
to sawing lumber, grinding meal, bark or other materials for
fabric dying, pressing cider or cheese, carding wool or
spinning. Mills employed lathes, served as distilleries,
husked corn, and played a role in the local ironworks;
essentially providing power to manufacture or assist in the
making of whatever was needed in the local community.
Although some items, like pottery and carriages, were sold
elsewhere for cash, most of the items required by the
community were made and used locally. There were a few
small stores to buy what couldn’t be produced, but the town
was mostly self sufficient and bartering or making your own
was the usual practice.
Sources:
www.antiquusmorbus.com/English/EnglishB.htm
Baldwin, Henry C. A Guide to Whately Pottery and
the Potters. Paradise Copies, Inc. Northampton,
Ma 1999.
Cane, Ena M, Whately Mass. 1771-1971. Printed
for the Town of Whately by Gazette Printing Co.,
Inc., Northampton, Ma 1972.
Cane, Ena M. Whately-A New England Portrait1771-1971. Gazette Printing Co., Inc.,
Northampton, Ma 1972.
Crafts, James M., A History of the Town of Whately,
Ma. .Printed for the town by D. L. Crandall,
Orange, Ma. 1899.
Davies, Karl, Smith Forest Resource Manager,
Timber Cut Data. Clark Science Center Archives,
Smith College, Northampton, MA. 1884-1991.
Lage, Melissa D. Historical Uses of land and water
resources in the Mill River watershed in Conway,
Deerfield, Whately and Hatfield- A Thesis. Smith
College Dept of Biology. May 1998.
Temple, J H. The History of the Town of Whately
1660-1871. T R Marvin and Son, Boston, 1872.
Watkins, Lura Woodside. The Potters of Whately,
Massachusetts. (From The American Collector, v.
VII nos. 6, 7 (July and August 1938).
Wessels, Tom, Interpreting the Forested
Landscape. Woodstock, Vt. : Countryman Press ;
New York : 1997.
Whately Bicentennial Publication Committee,
Come Celebrate With Us-Whately Mass.
Bicentennial Souvenir Program and Historical
Brochure-June 19-27th. 1971.
Mapping the MacLeish Field Station
A STRIDE Project by
Meredith Gallogly (‘12)
Advisors: Reid Bertone-Johnson (Landscape Studies Program) and Amy Larson Rhodes (Department of Geosciences)
Overview
The Smith College Ada and Archibald MacLeish Field Station,
acquired in 1964 but not dedicated to environmental research until
2008, is a site of study in many different areas, creating a wealth of
information that must be documented and organized. Geographic
Information Systems (GIS) software provides an array of tools that
can be used to map and classify data, both geographic and
otherwise. I have spent the last two semesters learning how to use
GIS and compiling information about MacLeish into easily accessible
maps that will be a resource for future researchers of the site.
Meredith Gallogly (’12) collecting
GIS coordinates in the rain. Photo
Credit: Reid Bertone-Johnson
The MacLeish Field Station
MacLeish in the fall. Photo Credit: Laura Paul (‘09)
Proposed Trails
One of the many stone walls that crisscross
MacLeish. Photo Credit: Jessie Bellini (‘11)
Forest Stand Type
A possible mine site.
Photo Credit: Jessie Bellini (‘11)
Dates of Sale to Forester
Smith’s property in West Whately covers a large area,
currently undeveloped but home to a lot of history. Parts
have been cleared for farmland, or as pasture for dairy
cows. The land has also been forested and mined for lead,
the estimated locations for sites of which are indicated
above.
In fall 2008, Reid Bertone- Johnson’s Landscape and
Narrative Class designed a network of trails that traverse
MacLeish. Their goal was to make the property more
accessible, so that visitors would be able to explore it more
widely.
Beginning in 1984, sections of the property were auctioned
to foresters. To facilitate this, the tree cover of different
areas was observed and mapped in a rough sketch. BB
signifies black birch, HH hickory and hardwood, WK white
pine and hemlock, and OM mixed oaks.
Between 1988 and 1991 the entire wooded area of the
property was sold to be forested. The tree cover data
collected twenty years ago to attract foresters can now be
compared to current observations to examine the impact
of foresting on local tree life.
Aerial Photo and topography courtesy of Office of Geographic and
Environmental Information (MassGIS), Commonwealth of
Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs
Proposed trail design courtesy of Landscape and Discussion Studio, Fall
2008
Tree type area data collected from January 1988 Timber Cut Proposal
Form, courtesy of Prof. Tom Litwin.
Date data from 1984 – 1991 Timber Cut Proposal Forms courtesy of
Prof. Tom Litwin.